Speaking Habermas to Gramsci: Implications for the Vocational Preparation of Community Educators
Studies in Philosophy and Education 31 (2):183-197 (2012)
| Abstract | Re-working the Gramscian idea of the ‘organic’ intellectual from the cultural-political sphere to Higher Education (HE), suggests the need to develop critical and questioning ‘counter hegemonic’ ideas and behaviour in community education students. Connecting this reworking to the Habermasian theory of communicative action, suggests that these students also need to learn how to be constructive in developing such knowledge. Working towards critical and constructive capacities is particularly relevant for students who learn through acting in practice settings where general principles and purposes acquired in the academy need to be interpreted in response to the unique demands of specific situations. From a Gramscian perspective, enabling students to develop the qualities of organic intellectuals means that lecturers have a duty to teach critical knowledges which the student will be unfamiliar with and unlikely to possess. If teaching is not to become simply didactic, however, there is also a need to acknowledge Habermas’s contention that all knowledge is contingent. This does not mean that knowledge is merely relative, subjective, or essentially interest serving, as some postmodernists would have it. In Habermasian terms, knowledge is developed through a rigorous process of contesting validity claims according to procedures appropriate to discipline areas. In these procedures, contestation occurs to the point where there is general agreement about the best current understanding, until such time as this is overtaken by ideas with a better claim. The danger is that over commitment to contestation in the classroom undermines subject knowledge and ultimately the authority of the educator. Speaking Habermas to Gramsci, and vice versa, helps socially and politically committed educators to construct a space in which didactic and discursive moments purposefully alternate | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesJohn D. Holst (2009). The Revolutionary Party in Gramsci's Pre-Prison Educational and Political Theory and Practice. Educational Philosophy and Theory 41 (6):622-639.
David G. Lebow, Dale W. Liek & Hope J. Hartman (2003). HyLighter and Interactive Annotation. Inquiry 23 (1-2):69-79.
Robert Garnett & Kristin Klopfenstein (2004). Critical Thinking as an Interpersonal Experience. Inquiry 23 (3):11-16.
Harold Entwistle (1979). Antonio Gramsci: Conservative Schooling for Radical Politics. Routledge & K. Paul.
Claire Phillips & Susan Green (2011). Faculty as Critical Thinkers. Inquiry 26 (2):44-50.
Anne Showstack Sassoon (2005). Gramsci and the Secret of Father Brown. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 8 (4):395-405.
John Bamber (2010). Developing Competence in Collegial Spaces : Exploring Critical Theory and Community Education. In Mark Murphy & Ted Fleming (eds.), Habermas, Critical Theory and Education. Routledge.
Marianna Papastephanou (2012). Exploring Habermas's Critical Engagement with Chomsky. Human Studies 35 (1):51-76.
Maurice A. Finocchiaro (1984). Gramsci: An Alternative Communism? Studies in East European Thought 27 (2).
Leland Horn & Michael Kennedy (2008). Collaboration in Business Schools: A Foundation for Community Success. Journal of Academic Ethics 6 (1).
Brian Elliott (2009). Theories of Community in Habermas, Nancy and Agamben: A Critical Evaluation. Philosophy Compass 4 (6):893-903.
Andrew Robinson (2005). Towards an Intellectual Reformation: The Critique of Common Sense and the Forgotten Revolutionary Project of Gramscian Theory. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 8 (4):469-481.
Eileen Dombrowski (2007). Theory of Knowledge: Course Companion. Oxford University Press.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-11-18Total downloads4 ( #178,675 of 549,078 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,317 of 549,078 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
